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Saturday, May 04, 2013

safe and sound.

Hello from the UK! It has been such a whirlwind of an experience since I got here. It has been a little overwhelming, but soo amazing. Since arriving, we have had residence orientation, castle tours, garden tours, academic presentations, etc etc etc. All the necessary, sometimes awesome (mostly still awesome) information thrown at us! But through it all it's still so so so amazing being here in the English countryside. I love it. It's absolutely gorgeous!

Herstmonceux Castle!!!

When we arrived, the weather definitely cooperated and we got to see the castle grounds in beautiful and warm sunny weather. Today was more like the typical misty UK weather I expected.. Hopefully it'll warm up again, though!

I've also met a lot of people here who are quite lovely! My program is really small and there are only 15 of us. We haven't actually started yet, but I'm already super excited to start learning too. Everyone seems to be super involved back at home and I'm sure we will all bring different perspectives to the classroom.

Shakespeare Garden

Of all the tours, I think the residence building is the most overwhelming. I am super lost, do not remember many of the keycodes to various rooms, and am not sure I will ever be able to find the laundry room (PS laundry costs £3.. whaat!?). The castle is way easier to navigate as it is essentially a box around a courtyard (so beautiful!!) and the gardens behind the castle are by far my favourite part. If (and when) the weather gets nicer (and I'm convinced that it will), I anticipate spending a lot of time out there. The grounds are huuge!

Roomies!

But I think the most exciting part has been finding a Christian community already. Big answer to prayer, for suure. My roommate, Sarah, is a Christian and is in my program here at the castle too (what whaaaat!!), and two other girls on my floor are also Christian. We're hoping to explore the local church together and start up a bible study in res too. Everyone is totally welcome and we might even order pizza.. just cause food is great, obvi.

God has been so good, and I can't believe I was worried or doubted that he would provide a community at all. My continued prayer request is to trust God in all the situations, experiences and opportunities that we are given here on this campus and in this country.